Hispanic media bolsters US adspend

NEW YORK: Overall US advertising expenditure was static in the first quarter of 2013, at $30.2bn, but Hispanic media recorded double digit growth, new figures have revealed.

Kantar Media, the research company, reported that spending was down 0.1% on the previous year and attributed this to events particular to 2012.

"It has been a lacklustre start for 2013, with flat year-over-year results due in part to strong 2012 growth caused by political and Olympic ad spending," said Jon Swallen, chief research officer at Kantar Media North America, in a statement reported in Advertising Age.

"Data from the early second quarter are mixed," he added, "suggesting marketers are still being cautious and conservative with ad budgets."

These figures were in contrast to the overall category increases of 0.3% for TV, 1.8% for consumer magazines and a 4% decline for newspaper spending.

Within TV, cable also registered an uplift, of 5.2%, but other sectors fell, including broadcast TV (-5.2%), spot TV (-2.4%) and syndication (-1.1%).

In the print category, spending in local magazines was down across the board, apart from Hispanic titles. Local magazines dropped 5.7%, business-to-business magazines 4.1% and Sunday magazines 3.7%.

National titles bore the brunt of falling newspaper expenditure, down 9.2%, while local papers fell 3.3%.

Among the remaining categories reported, outdoor spending was the only other one to register any growth, up 4.3%. Radio was down 1.7%.

A change in reporting methodology meant that Kantar excluded online display advertising from this quarter's figures.

Kantar also noted that over half of the country's top ten advertisers had increased their outlay in the first quarter, substantially so in some cases.

Spending by AT&T, the telecoms business, surged 27.5% while L'Oréal, the beauty products brand, pushed its ad expenditure up 25.2%. Procter & Gamble, the consumer products company, recorded a less dramatic rise of 9.1%.